Gerald Stern, one of the country’s most loved and respected poets who wrote with spirited melancholy and earthly humor about his childhood, Judaism, mortality and the wonders of the contemplative life, has died at 97.
there’s a mouth speaking GreekHe was past 50 before he won any major awards, but was cited often over the second half of his life. Besides his National Book Award, his honors included being a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1991 for “Leaving Another Kingdom” and receiving such lifetime achievement awards as the Ruth Lilly Prize and the Wallace Stevens Award.
Stern, born in 1925, remembered no major literary influences as a child, but did speak of the lasting trauma of the death of his older sister, Sylvia, when he was 8. He would describe himself as “a thug who hung out in pool halls and got into fights.” But, he told The New York Times in 1999, he was a well-read thug who excelled in college. Stern studied political science at the University of Pittsburgh and received a master’s in comparative literature from Columbia University. Ezra Pound and W.
His marriage to Patricia Miller ended in divorce. They had two children, Rachael Stern Martin and David Stern. Stern mostly avoided topical poems, but he was a longtime political activist whose causes included desegregating a swimming pool in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and organizing an anti-apartheid reading at the University of Iowa. He taught at several schools, but had great skepticism about writing programs and the academic life.
Besides Macari and his children, Stern is survived by grandchildren Dylan and Alana Stern and Rebecca and Julia Martin.
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